Sri Lanka faced criticism yesterday for extending a state of emergency giving sweeping powers to security forces to detain suspects ahead of parliamentary elections in April.
A private poll-monitoring body, the People’s Action for Free and Fair Elections, said continuation of emergency rule could undermine the vote scheduled to be held after last month’s presidential election, won by Mahinda Rajapakse.
“The use of emergency laws could seriously affect the campaign and there is no guarantee that the government will not use it against political opponents,” said the group’s executive director, Rohana Hettiarachchi.
On Friday, Sri Lanka’s parliament voted heavily in favor of extending the state of emergency for one month despite international calls to revert to normal laws.
The extension must be approved by parliament every month.
“The emergency is needed because enemies of the state are trying to regroup and unite,” Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake told parliament.
Emergency rule allows suspects to be kept in custody for prolonged periods without trial.
Official sources said the national assembly could be dissolved next week, two months before its six-year term ends in the middle of April, and elections scheduled for early April.
The New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) has been pressing for the emergency laws to be lifted and a halt to violence targeting opponents of the government.
“We fear that this [violence targeting the opposition] is just the beginning of a campaign to get rid of critical voices before the parliamentary elections,” HRW director Brad Adams said in a statement last week.
“Sri Lanka’s friends should tell the government that any crackdown on civil society will harm future relations,” it said.
Dozens of opposition workers have been held under emergency laws.
BACKLASH: The National Party quit its decades-long partnership with the Liberal Party after their election loss to center-left Labor, which won a historic third term Australia’s National Party has split from its conservative coalition partner of more than 60 years, the Liberal Party, citing policy differences over renewable energy and after a resounding loss at a national election this month. “Its time to have a break,” Nationals leader David Littleproud told reporters yesterday. The split shows the pressure on Australia’s conservative parties after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s center-left Labor party won a historic second term in the May 3 election, powered by a voter backlash against US President Donald Trump’s policies. Under the long-standing partnership in state and federal politics, the Liberal and National coalition had shared power
NO EXCUSES: Marcos said his administration was acting on voters’ demands, but an academic said the move was emotionally motivated after a poor midterm showing Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday sought the resignation of all his Cabinet secretaries, in a move seen as an attempt to reset the political agenda and assert his authority over the second half of his single six-year term. The order came after the president’s allies failed to win a majority of Senate seats contested in the 12 polls on Monday last week, leaving Marcos facing a divided political and legislative landscape that could thwart his attempts to have an ally succeed him in 2028. “He’s talking to the people, trying to salvage whatever political capital he has left. I think it’s
Polish presidential candidates offered different visions of Poland and its relations with Ukraine in a televised debate ahead of next week’s run-off, which remains on a knife-edge. During a head-to-head debate lasting two hours, centrist Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, from Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s governing pro-European coalition, faced the Eurosceptic historian Karol Nawrocki, backed by the right-wing populist Law and Justice party (PiS). The two candidates, who qualified for the second round after coming in the top two places in the first vote on Sunday last week, clashed over Poland’s relations with Ukraine, EU policy and the track records of their
UNSCHEDULED VISIT: ‘It’s a very bulky new neighbor, but it will soon go away,’ said Johan Helberg of the 135m container ship that run aground near his house A man in Norway awoke early on Thursday to discover a huge container ship had run aground a stone’s throw from his fjord-side house — and he had slept through the commotion. For an as-yet unknown reason, the 135m NCL Salten sailed up onto shore just meters from Johan Helberg’s house in a fjord near Trondheim in central Norway. Helberg only discovered the unexpected visitor when a panicked neighbor who had rung his doorbell repeatedly to no avail gave up and called him on the phone. “The doorbell rang at a time of day when I don’t like to open,” Helberg told television